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So here you have the proposed revision 1.6. While there were some rather large changes in some parts of the .RES during the adjustments, generally I tried to preserve the overall feel/concept of the car as laid out on the previous implementations. Performance-wise, acceleration was given a check - below 110mph, it can provide NSX a good challenge on a drag race; beyond that, it is closer to Audi or Lancia. Flat-track top speed is 144mph, and there is little margin for extra gains by jumping: overall top speed is a mere 162mph. As for handling, both grip and braking efficiency were strongly reduced from their IMSA-like values for competition balance concerns; yet they are still are a lot above the levels of other slow cars, thus preserving cody's design decision to some extent (the car can take dirt and ice corners with nice confidence, but not overly easily). Now I will send a personal message to cody explaining the changes in detail so he can evaluate properly the results and confirm any decision taken by Zak...

Edit: Removed deprecated buggy version; get the correct car either from ZakStunts page or from a few posts below.

I attempted to fine-tune the Ranger yesterday... will post the results for evaluation of Cody and Zak later today 

Shelby Ultimate Aero, the fastest car on Earth: 1287 HP, theoretically 434 kmh top speed... 

Really a great car, both on looks and performance!

The set of 2x3 rearlights instead of the familiar 2x2 give it an interesting "alien" looks 

I would suggest taking this one with Countach and push as hard as possible for an useful driving exercise  Nice design! Sometimes I do think we should promote exchange of non-championship/just-for-fun tracks and designs (track exchange is one of the things newbies - myself included, back then - would expect to find here...). And welcome Nerd42! 

Best would be to have CP (checkpoint) possibility, but optionnal. That is, no CP required to make the track valid : just a start and a finish would be required. They could be the same place ("round" track), or different places (one-way track).
Then, adding CP is the choice of the track designer, in order to allow (or not) big shortcuts.
Well, it's my own opinion only.

And mine too  Ideally one would have two kinds of CPs, one that would be crossed only from a single direction (for regular tracks) and another that could be crossed by both directions (for off-road racing a la Z77, but if that's too hard just one kind could do fine. And of course, the possibility to have no CPs too...

I don't know what Duplode meant, but automatic turbo boost when "nitro box" is full will bring limitations in track designing I think. How to take properly a sharp corner if turbo can't be stopped until nitro box is empty ?

Then you would have to spend your turbo before it blasts by itself  But in fact I'm forced to agree with you in that it could be a problem, and is quite superfluous unnecessary. It would be fine if the nitro just: a) had a max limit and b) waned slowly after being accumulated, so the player wouldn't be able to just hold it forever.

So... only NORH races! 

That's the way to go...

You might want to make the handling easier for the mobile phone version, or people's arms will suffer.

(...even because doing RH on a cellphone would really harm people's wrists  )

I have to agree with Chulk and Krys that the video is the most effective tribute (I voted for it). But the medals sound so cool... 

Maybe you shouldn't be so depressed Mark - I feel that with your skills it won't take too long to convert that into 54:xx NoRH 

I had 2:22.70.

Damn, it would have been a tight battle According to Igor, full results are expected for tomorrow - I'm curious to see how we would have fared...

lol, maybe I'll get a podium then.

It seems Rudah couldn't send his replay in time as well (whatever happened to this race...), thus your probability of reaching a podium has risen to about 100%

You lost a big chance to reduce your gap, Duplode! I just sent a listfiller (more than three minute...) one ore two hour before the deadline... 

Well, as I said before I don't believe I can realistically hope to defend my title now - only Felipe might steal it from you at this point. I'll be more than happy if I manage to win one of the three remaining races 

This will be one funny scoreboard... I'm racing enthusiastially now, pretending it will count 

Oh my God... did I miss the chance for a great final result?

I'll be there next time.

But you did send your partial lap, even if late? If not, you have slightly less than 3 hours to do it 

Results? I forgot the deadline... But I really wonder how fast the others are.

I failed to produce a replay too! But laps sent up to GMT-3 midnight of today will be included on the final classification, only below all other non-late pipsqueaks. So you can still race against me, at least 

Hello Nick, it's great to know Stunts keeps inspiring game designers around the world!

As for my suggestions, Krys and Bonzai Joe have covered most essentials: an editor (even if a PC one), replay saving (storing the keystrokes may be a good solution for your case too) are very important, and freedom to cut racing elements (as well as freedom in track design) are crucial. The more random bugs, like go-through loopcuts (or slalom blocks) and random Magic Carpets are not so important (it would be probably very hard to implement them on purpose in a convincing manner). Krys' main suggestions about gameplay are cool too. If I understood them correctly, they mean:

• Trackmania-like checkpoints (that might need to be crossed in a fixed order or not)
• A nitro system comparable to the "Special" gauge in the Tony Hawk's pro Skater series, where you accumulate boost by completing loops, speeding through slaloms, long ramp-to-ramp transfers, etc. The main difference would be that one would be able to spend the boost wherever one wishes to - it might be cool/more challenging if the boost activated by itself after a certain limit (as sort of happens in THPS), so one cannot store it forever.

As for powergear, I think it could be a nice addition if some cars would lock-in at top speed after taking some jumps/loops at high speed. Not all cars would need to have powergear, and the ones which do have it might be penalized by a reduction in the rate of regular boost increase for "balance".

After seeing Zak's new system, I felt the only way to really understand the implications would be to perform a full-fledged simulation... so I did it, picking from Z82 (when the current bonus rules more or less settled) up to Z93 (the furthest I could predict reasonably). Predicted podiums, used cars and bonuses for each race are below; a graph and the full calculation spreadsheet are attached.

Code Select Expand


C82 C83 C84 C85 C86 C87 C88 C89 C90 C91 C92 C93
ANSX 24 26 29 33 38 24 26 29 33 29 31 34
AUDI 29 31 23 25 28 32 32 32 34 34 36 39
VETT 33 31 22 24 27 31 36 36 38 31 33 36
FGTO 31 26 28 31 35 40 11 13 16 20 25 31
JAGU 13 10 10 12 15 19 24 0 2 5 9 14
COUN 32 34 34 36 39 39 39 41 44 33 33 35
LM02 35 35 37 37 39 42 46 46 48 48 15 17
LANC 29 31 34 38 7 9 12 16 21 27 34 42
P962 10 10 12 12 14 17 21 26 -7 -5 -2 2
PC04 33 33 35 38 42 28 30 33 37 37 37 39
PMIN -11 -9 -6 -28 -26 -23 -19 -14 -8 -1 7 -31

1st FGTO VETT PMIN LANC ANSX FGTO JAGU P962 COUN LM02 PMIN
2nd JAGU AUDI PMIN LANC PC04 FGTO JAGU P962 VETT LM02 PMIN
3rd VETT AUDI PMIN LANC PC04 FGTO JAGU P962 ANSX LM02 PMIN
Others LM02 JAGU LM02 COUN AUDI AUDI LM002 PC04
P962 COUN P962 COUN VETT AUDI COUN
PC04 LM02 PC04


In the simulation, the races would go pretty much the same up to Z86. According to Z86, the NSX would take a rather heavy hit (14%) and thus would not be competitive for Z87; the same goes for Carrera, which would be unlikely a podiumer in Z88. Instead, the GTO (which didn't lose much after Z82 for starters) would hit a really high bonus in Z87 and fully dominate the proceedings. With Z88 not being much of a powergear track and the highest PG car at 36%, it would be mostly a Jaguar (24%) race, but probably with a fairly good diversity of cars at midtable. In Z89, it would be P962 turn instead, but with a fairly stronger dominance (mostly due to the relatively large number of used cars in the previous two races). With the IMSA cars out of the queue, Z90 would be very balanced, with most cars being able to reach a decent result (crucially, the excellent bonus of Countach would be balanced by the PG possibilities). After that, for Z91 the LM002 would be 11% ahead of the closest car, so there would be little option unless Zak prepared a full Indy-PG track. By now, the Indy is astronomically high on bonus (7%, while Jaguar has 9%...), so Z92 would be a pure Indy race - which would then mean a 38% hit for Indy before Z93... Z93 could well be a Lancia race (at last recovered from Z85), but the PG cars appear to be competitive, while Audi, Carrera and Countach are not exactly far either. And so on...

What are the conclusions to be drawn?

1. The system would not be radically different from what it is now.
2. Most races would still be dominated by a specific car, although the probability of true multi-car races (like, on the simulation, Z82, Z90 and, with a little luck, Z88 and Z93) appears to have improved.
3. Rotation is definitely better: on 11 races (Z82...Z92) there would be 10 winning cars, including the long-absent IMSA cars. Indy was the only repetition, but only after an 8-race gap and, with -31% entering Z93 and several cars on the mid/high +30s range, it wouldn't reappear for a long time anyway.
4. The average positive bonus awarded will be in all likelihood larger than Zak predicted, even with 11 cars only (for the final 8 races, after the system got stable, the average was 29.75). Recovery times for a car reaching a full podium are similarly larger, typically of 7/8 races (Indy: Z84 --> Z92; Lancia: Z85 --> Z93)
5. The difference between the larger and smaller bonus values won't grow fast enough to destroy the balance (my main fear after reading Zak's post).

Overall, the system is a definite improvement over what we currently have, minimizing exaggerate growth of bonus percentages and improving the car rotation while making eventual true multi-car races more likely than now. There are a few important remarks to be made, though: 

1. Percentages will often reach the 40% / 50% range, even if they probably won't get past that. That raises again the issue of having to improve 0.10s to advance 0.05s on the scoreboard... Renormalization would be a poor solution, since it raises the absolute gaps between larger and smaller bonuses, and thus would destroy the elegance of this system. Most likely rounding corrected times to 0.01s instead of 0.05s is the way to go.

2. The usage of cars approaching the end of a long recovery period can have a huge influence on the evolution of bonus for all cars. If a car gets +8% on a single race (Indy on Z91, Lancia on Z92), it is necessarily subtracting that large gap from the podiumers (for instance, the long hibernation of Lancia is the main reason the Indy lost so much % after winning Z92). That also means Zak would have a powerful tool for modifying the pace of bonus evolution, as delaying or anticipating the resurfacing of a long-unused car by track design decisions has large-scale effects on the whole system.

3.

2. Why the bonus for unused cars? I don't think it makes any difference if the car was unused or someone came in 11th with it, 30 seconds after the winning time.

That is actually a pretty important point, for two main reasons. First of all, if a car is on a long hibernation and thus getting additional bonus really fast (as discussed on the previous topic), there will be a huge difference if it gets used in a listfiller instead of remaining unused by one more round (thus gaining several additional points), with several cars being affected indirectly. Perhaps more importantly, popular cars that tend to be used for listfillers, just-for-fun laps or by absolute newbies can get locked with unfavourable bonus percentages easily. That's the main reason we didn't have an IMSA victory this year. Even in my simulation, the Audi was the only car not to have a victory mostly due to a number of non-podium participations. That issue should, IMO, be addressed by only counting as "used" cars on the top half, or the top two-thirds, of the scoreboard (only top 5 as BJ suggested seems a bit too restrictive). 

4. Finally, the max-min gaps and the recovery times on the simulation appear to be pretty well balanced, even if relatively large. With more cars, however, more points will be distributed, and the gaps will be inevitably larger. More importantly, recovery times will become fairly longer - possibly a whole season in many cases. A simple option to counter that would be to make the bonuses for unused cars start to add up from 1 instead of 2 (+1, +2, +3... instead of +2, +3, +4 for successive races). That might also make multi-car races more likely and also help with the problem of casual usage harming popular cars discussed on the previous topic (by lowering the difference in bonus points gained between used and unused cars).

FIA and the teams have reached a consensual agreement on cost-cutting measures for 2009 and 2010, and it seems they've cut it pretty deep! For instance, the 2010 decisions include:

At races there will be standardised radio and telemetry systems. Tyre warmers will be banned. No-one will be allowed to mechanically purge the tyres. Refuelling will be banned. The race distance may also be reduced depending on the results of market research.

Full story: http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns21039.html

You like Bernie's idea of medals for drivers instead of points ? Or you think like me and think it's one of the worst idea of Bernie ? Then vote here : http://www.formula1.com/news/interviews/2008/12/8775.html (please vote no )

Shitty, shitty... Shitty Bernie's idea !

From the same source:

Market research will be conducted to gauge the public reaction to a number of new ideas, including possible changes to qualifying and a proposal for the substitution of medals for points for the drivers.

So this time there is actually a slim hope our votes actually have some marginal influence on the outcome of this... And of course, please vote no!

Well, I'm not surprised with this outcome - if there would be only one good way it'd be a centisecond war a la FTT0105 anyway; and even more so, the alternative racing lines that might be viable appear to be fairly well matched (at least the ones which do not get you 0:54, or 2:54, or 3:12 penalty for no reason... ). And besides that, I knew my initial time was rather pedestrian (even if this Paris has no sidewalks... ). Thus I improved it a little bit, if only to stay on the same page for now 

And Krys, I know you already reinforced that we're in a "shortcut free competition", but there is still one cut that needs your attention I think. Remember the trick you used on your SDR victory last year?(*) That piece of scenery road splitting from the final section of the track and rejoining just after the first corner is very, very inviting for a similar exploit. May I take it for granted that it is forbidden, in analogy to the arguments about, say, Z85?

(*) well, not just you but Brian, and me as well to less spectacular results...

I guess you refer to the fact that when you try to edit a .res of a stressed-modded car (with the unpacked .3sh, .vsh) CarBlaster complains about the lack of the packed files (.p3s, .pvs). The workaround to that is opening an original car and then using F9/F10 to cycle through the .res files to reach the modded car (thankfully Mark Nailwood didn't include that rather pointless sanity check elsewhere in the program). As for other .res editors, the few that exist are much inferior to CarBlaster, so we'll have to deal with it until dstien includes .res support on stressed.